The Mutant Terror
by Cyrus Majin
Summary: Kim believed that mutants were an urban legend. However, when Mrs. Dr. Possible makes she and Ron leave their home of Middleton, she discovers that the truth about how she has survived saving the world for so long is not what she originally thought.
1. On the Run

**Disclaimer:** I own neither Kim Possible nor the associated characters therein. Also, despite the fact that this set in no other pre-established continuity, I do not own the X-Men and their associated characters either.

**Author's note:** I will not be changing the abilities of any characters save for those few who I might eventually fuse together for the purposes of storytelling. However, this will offer my take on how Ron and Kim could survive their missions. Further more, even though I have made Kim's mom be Jean Grey, Mrs. Dr. Possible is not a mutant and, as such, has no powers.

**On the Run**

Kimberly Anne Possible rested her head against the window of the large sport utility vehicle that her mother, Dr. Jean Possible, had used to evacuate she and her boyfriend, Ronald Stoppable, from their home in Middleton three days prior. They had been driving nonstop since then. Her mother had been vague about why just the three of them were leaving their hometown in such a hurry, only saying things like, "its for Middleton's and your safety" or "it'll be easier to explain when we get there." Of course, she never said what sort of danger would make it necessary to travel east from Colorado nor did she say where "there" was.

Then came what Kim was now referring to as "The Call." Wade had called her "Kimmunicator" the day before about some humans turning into what appeared to be menacing looking robots. When her mother, who wasn't driving at the time, saw the images, she muttered something about "sentinels" and that someone hadn't even been sworn in. According to Wade, they were looking for both she and Ron and were saying they were mutant terrorists. Kim's mind was reeling. Mutants were only and urban myth, and even if they weren't, she was certain that neither she nor Ron were ones. They didn't have any strange powers, unless one counted Ron's Mystical Monkey Power, but that wasn't from genetics. The worst part was that Team Possible was being labeled as terrorists, which she knew for a fact that they weren't. Hell, she was the one who saved the world from them. However, she didn't have time to be surprised by all these revelations for long, when she started hearing pounding in the background on Wade's end. With a fearful look in his eyes Wade sent a signal to the advanced device in Kim's hand, causing it to short out.

She'd been to worried to sleep after that and her mother continued to not answer any of her questions, only giving an "I'm sorry" or "trust me" when pressed. But now as her head rested on the window, she could feel the exhaustion of the past few days take over and she fell asleep.

Jean Possible looked over at her daughter from her location in the driver's seat of the SUV. She knew she needed to tell Kim and Ron about the truth that she had hidden from them for the longest time, but she had been finding it difficult to say. However, she now had the best opportunity to make the call she'd been waiting to make since her daughter got that call from her friend and tech guru. She'd wanted to avoid making this particular call while the two teen heroes were awake, as she was sure that this would make them worry even more.

"Call Charles Xavier," she said in to headset of her cell phone. She only had to wait a moment before she heard someone pick up on the other end. "Hello Charles, its Jean. I have some bad news: president-elect Robert Kelly has already initiated his Sentinel Project..."

-------------------------

_End Notes:_ I apologize for such a short first chapter. I'll try getting some more content in the next one when I introduce Kelly and his supporters as well as having Kim and Ron finally reach New York and getting some of the answers that they have been trying to get from Mrs. Dr. Possible.


	2. Hail to the Chief

**Disclaimer:** I own neither Kim Possible nor the associated characters therein. Also, despite the fact that this set in no other pre-established continuity, I do not own the X-Men and their associated characters either.

**Author's note: **I forgot to mention in the first chapter that this is post StD. More specifically, the events start half way through the fall semester of the senior year for Kim and Ron.

**Hail to the Chief**

President-elect Robert Kelly walked through his campaign headquarters. The office suite was still abuzz with activity even though election day had passed with Kelly as the victor. Some would think that now would be a time to rest before the hectic days being in the White House would bring. However, the former senator had made it clear that he wanted everything ready to be put into place before he was sworn in. And that was the reason he was heading to the private meeting room today.

Four men were sitting around the large table as he entered. First was his campaign manager, Graydon Creed, with his running-mate, former Governor William Stryker. Across the table were two scientists who had a special interest in getting Kelly elected president: Drs. Cameron Hodge and Bolivar Trask. Graydon had introduced the two men to Robert shortly after receiving the Republican nomination. By the looks on their faces, the field test of their special project had not gone well, which was disappointing to the president-elect, but not unanticipated, this was only a test after all.

Kelly looked at each of the seated men in turn and then in a calm tone said, "Judging by the severity of everyone's looks, I assume the test did not go according to plan..." Dr. Hodge was about to speak, but stopped himself when President Kelly raised his hand. "I am not asking you to confirm my assumption, nor am I asking you to pass blame. What I want to know is: what went wrong; how does it affect our plans, and what can we do to correct it?"

Dr. Trask cleared his throat before starting. "In many ways our Sentinels exceeded our expectations in the Middleton test, however, in one respect that is also the reason for the failure. While they were unable to locate the two targets they had been sent to either recover or eliminate, they managed to locate a couple latent mutants and several whose DNA had been altered, though only slightly. In that respect we now know the full sensitivity of their ability to locate and identify genetic aberrations. However, this is, again, where we ran into the problem. This particular problem was in the form of a Sentinel who removed herself from our Command Matrix and attack her fellow Sentinels."

Governor Stryker cocked his head. "'Her?' Are you saying you gave your machines a female form? Was one of your designers feeling lonely?"

Dr. Hodge shook his head, ignoring the future vice president's obvious condescension. "No, the fact is a Sentinel is more than just a machine. In initial prototypes that were made it was discovered that they lacked any confines on their adaptability. Now, one might think that it would be a good thing, however, that adaptability would always eventually lead to the fully mechanical prototypes turning against humans. It was eventually decided that a human component was needed, hence why we used data collected from the Centurion Project to make our Sentinels."

"So did the one Sentinel go rogue because it was female?" Graydon asked.

Dr. Trask leaned forward in his chair. "No, otherwise it wouldn't have been just this one. Judging by the data that had been recorded by the unit before it turned we..."

It was at that moment a beeping started, though it wasn't long Dr. Hodge indicated it was his phone and excused himself.

"As I was saying," Dr. Trask continued, "we had determined from the recorded data that the biological aspect of the rogue Sentinel possessed altered DNA similar to some of those that had been rounded up before everything went wrong. In fact the scope of the change was almost identical with only one one-thousandth of a percent error, like they had been all been exposed to some genetically altering substance at the same time but for slightly dissimilar periods."

The president-elect steepled his fingers as he leaned forward. "Any idea why this was a factor?"

"Not as of yet, Mr. President."

"I'm not in office yet, Dr. Trask."

"Of course, sir. The only reason why we think altered DNA is the cause is because, as far as we can tell, it is the only difference between her and the rest of the units. We will be running some simulations on the base AI logic functions to see what we can come up with."

"Were there any other problems with the test?" This time it was the governor and running-mate who asked the serious question.

Bolivar shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He knew that the only other problem was one that would seem ridiculous. In truth he found it hard to believe himself, but having seen all the damage that had been done to the Sentinels, even though none had been killed or destroyed, and having seen the playback of the event, he couldn't deny the truth. "...bugs..." he finally said in a subdued tone.

Stryker raised an eyebrow. "Bugs? What kind of bugs?"

"Cockroaches, giant ones. Ranging in size from one about an medium sized dog to ones two or three stories high when fully raised up." He quickly continued before the former governor could scoff at him again, "From what we can tell they reside in a landfill located in the Tri-City area. How they came to be the size they are, we are not sure yet, but we are looking into it..."

------

Nathan Christopher Summers sat in the lotus position trying to focus on using a fine control of his telekinesis on a hand full of pebbles. This task was made more difficult by the fact that his excitable younger sister, Rachel, kept shouting at him telepathically.

_NATE!_

"GYAH!" the fifteen year-old with light-brown hair and white bangs exclaimed as the ring of pebbles exploded into dust. _Don't do that, Rae! I could have hurt someone!_

Yeah, yeah, whatever. She sent back through their connection. You really have to come see this! 

_What? _More_ people coming for whatever this trip is?_ The novelty of the Xavier estate as well as all the new people showing up had worn off several days ago.

_But, Nate, judging by how Uncle Bobby and Uncle Hank are keeping daddy from running it has to be _HER

Nathan quickly got to his feet and dashed for the front of the mansion. By the time he got there he saw that his father, Scott, had resigned himself to whatever fate was in store for him since he saw that neither of his father's old friends, Henry McCoy and Robert Drake, were trying to hold him in place. He didn't see the infamous redhead, Jean Grey, though from what he heard from his mother it was Jean Possible now, until he felt fury emanate from near the SUV that had parked near the fountain in the front of the large estate. He guessed that all the telepaths on site felt it since he saw his mother, who had just stepped out to greet the new "refugees," wince and heard his thirteen year-old sister looking out the window of her guest room "Eep."

Dr. Jean Possible had prepared herself for seeing, as she referred to him in her mind, Scott "scum-bag" Summers and had resigned herself to treating him with terse politeness. However, that resolve went away when she saw not one but two teenagers whose appearances were clearly similar to not only the man she'd at one time loved but also her one-time hated rival, Emma Frost. Now her intention was to storm up to him and demand to know why he had been willing to have children with the "Ice Queen" while he had decided to throw she and her unborn child to the wolves. And storm she did, but as she approached he just had to open his mouth.

With a nervous laugh he stuck his foot in his mouth. "Hey, Jean. Not still angry are you?"

Jean growled at Scott as she connected with a right hook, knocking him out and his red-glasses off his face. Hank and Bobby looked down incredulously at their unconscious friend and groaned, "Yes, Scott, of course she is."

Kim and Ron had been stretching near the SUV when they saw the event happen. All they could do was stand there stunned, their mouths agape. They had never seen Kim's mother so angry that she'd belt someone out of the blue. To them she'd always seemed like a fountain of endless patience. The shook themselves out of their stupor as Mrs. Dr. Possible stepped over the comatose man after acknowledging the other three adults, though she couldn't help but notice the coldness in the greeting she gave the blonde woman.

She was so busy trying to process what she had seen and heard the past couple of days she almost missed hearing the blonde say, "Nathan, go show your big sister and her friend inside. I'm sure they will want to get cleaned up before lunch."

All three teens blanched at the woman's statement. "Big sister?"

------

Dr. Cameron Hodge closed his cell phone. He was furious. One of the data analysts had discovered the faulty Sentinel was no ordinary model. She was the XJ-9 unit. Dubbed the "Wakeman Production Proof," she was to be used as the template before he and Trask had gotten control of the project three months ago. They had been assured that XJ-9 had been disposed of before Trask had stripped many of the useless, hardwired protocols from his "Master Mold" unit, the XJ-10.

How could she still exist? Why had she been a part of the Command Matrix when it had not even existed when she was built? But what made Hodge the most concerned was: could she eventually take over control of the other units and send them against us? There were to many questions, and all he could bring himself to do was whisper the hated name, "Nora Wakeman."

------

In downtown Middleton, the rouge Sentinel sat in a dark alley, hugging her knees to her chest, crying. This wasn't what she wanted. She'd wanted to be a hero like her friend and captain, Kim. What she got was fear and disapproval, in spite of the fact that she had turned against the command she received when her Sentinel parts went active. She wanted to curse her mother for her part in this, but she doubted that she'd known how the Sentinels would be used when she'd been the first. She wanted to curse her fellow Sentinels, but she knew they had no real control and that she'd been lucky to find a way out at all. So she resigned herself to cursing her inability to have an identity. She could no longer be Tara Jennifer Wakeman, she lost that when she became a Sentinel. Nor could she continue being Sentinel XJ-9, she gave that up when she went rogue. She was no one, nothing.

She heard the footsteps and looked to the end of they alley. Her tears only made it possible to see that the figure at the end was human in shape. _Good,_ she thought as the figure walked toward her, _someone's come to get rid of me like the rest of the trash._

She felt the figure gently lay a hand on her, heard it sigh and then a familiar voice, "There you are, Tara, we've been looking everyone's been looking for you."

The Sentinel sniffed. "I'm not Tara anymore, Bonnie." She winced at the sound of her own metallic voice.

"Oh yeah? Then who are you."

"I'm no one. Just a piece of useless trash."

Bonnie scoffed, "You're right. You can't be Tara. As gentle as she was, she'd never give up like this. Never put herself down. Especially not after pulling off a heroic stunt worthy of little miss perfect, Kim Possible." The cheerleader looked at her friend and sighed. "I'll ask you again: if you aren't Tara, who are you?"

"I don't know. I can't be who I was as a human. Nor can go back to following those awful commands. I just don't know who I am anymore."

"Well how about this for a start... you're my friend. You are the friend of the infamous Bonnie Rockwaller." They both laughed at the over dramatic nature of her statement.

"Thanks. But I still don't think I can call myself Tara anymore."

Bonnie nodded in understanding. "That's fine. How about I call you TJ? Just until you decide who you are."

Rogue Sentinel nodded. "Okay."

------

To Be Continued...

**End notes:** Some of you will probably be upset with the choices I made, like the bit around Scott leaving Jean when she was pregnant. Some of things were necessary to keep from overloading this fic with characters while still holding to the cannon established in _Kim Possible_. Some of it was because of what I have planned for the future of the story. The rest was just to get past something that was becoming tedious but still trying to give the information that I want the readers to know. I really hope I having munged things up to much with this. Any way, please critique as well as give some ideas as to what you want to see in the future of this universe. Next time, Kim's mom has some explaining to do. Till next time, "true believers."

**Edit note: **I'd like to thank CylonOne for catching my typos.


	3. Explanation, Initiation

**Disclaimer:** I own neither Kim Possible nor the associated characters therein. Also, despite the fact that this set in no other pre-established continuity, I do not own the X-Men and their associated characters either. Finally, I don't own Jenny Wakeman and the associated characters of My Life As a Teenage Robot.

**Explanation, Initiations**

An androgynous figure stood in a surrealistic, electronic landscape, waiting for some of its colleagues to arrive. The figure only ever referred to itself as "M," and no one in these parts seemed to know anything about the enigma. When anyone asked it for more information, it would just chuckle and say it didn't want to bring work into its playground. However, M was certain that at least one friend had discovered the truth, but just hadn't done anything with the information. The hacker known as "Forge" was a genius after all; M had found the tests once it'd discovered his identity. Unfortunately, neither it nor any of the contacts it had made here had seen Forge for several days, which was unusual as he always seemed to be around doing something. M really hoped the "white hat" would be able to be here. The message it had gotten from "The Warlock" had been cryptic yet sound like one of those fluff e-mails discussing thing like they had known each other personally.

The code had been clear, considering the shared experiences that M, Warlock, Forge, and their fourth cohort, an apparent female known as "Arcade," had. From what M had been able to determine, Warlock had found something regarding the president-elect and wanted them all to meet in this location. Forge had shown this to the other three over a year ago, but had insisted that they not use it unless they had no where more secure to go. Unfortunately, around the time Forge disappeared many of their old secure locations had gone missing as well.

M had been thinking of all these things when its reverie was interrupted by the sudden appearance of two others. One he recognized as their de facto leader, Forge, while didn't seem familiar at all which made it overtly suspicious of the new comer.

"Good to see that you are alive, Forge. I was certain this was going to be a private meeting."

The man with dark skin and hair smiled weakly. "She's calling herself 'Cipher,' and right now, M; she's one of the few people I know I can trust. Heck, she's the reason I'm stable right now. That stupid communications blackout has messed up all of my equipment."

The enigma took stock of the woman. She seemed very serious and severe. M figured she was probably another white hat, like Forge, but from all appearances she was more uptight about the law than its friend. That was when it realized what that same friend had just said.

"Wait, what communications blackout?"

"Well..."

Cipher touched the man's shoulder to stop him. "I'd suggest we at least wait for this 'Warlock' character to show up before any of us reveals what they know, 'Forge.'"

"Well, aren't you little-miss-take-charge." M snapped at the woman.

The woman looked placidly back at the unknown. "I am just making my opinion known, 'M.' Of course I'm not surprised by your reaction to me considering that fool you deal with on a daily basis."

M's eyes widened in panic. She_ can't possibly know who I am. How could she? If Forge knew would he have told her...?_

A new speaker chose that moment to make her known. "Wait, M puts up with a moron everyday?"

At hearing Arcade speak, it recomposed itself, and decided to see if it could redirect the conversation from its professional life. "Hey, Arcade, how did that move go?"

"First, that was months ago and we discussed it then. Second, there is no way I'm letting you change the subject now that we have someone who seems to know your deepest darkest secrets." She turned to Cipher. "So mystery women, what can you tell us about M? It won't even give us a gender, insisting we only use the gender neutral pronoun for it."

As Cipher opened her mouth to answer, a fifth individual cleared its throat. "Miss Arcade, I didn't have us meet here to discuss M's background." The other four turned to see wizened face of the Warlock. "I am glad to see you have returned Mr. Forge. I was hoping your travels in this realm would provide some insight into what I have found."

A beam of light shot from his hand to the hands of the other four. They each took a moment to process what Warlock had given them, but it wasn't long before they reacted. Arcade just stood there in wide-eyed shock occasionally muttering "Madre Dios." M couldn't stop repeating, "...this is not good..." to itself. Cipher was the most composed, almost like she was expecting something like what they were seeing, however, in spite of her lack of reaction, her anger about the information still seemed palpable.

Forge's reaction was the most unexpected. He had always exuded confidence in front of his friends in this realm. This was the first time that, M, Arcade, or Warlock could remember seeing fear in his eyes. His voice was like hearing a pin drop, "Middleton was only the beginning."

Arcade blanched. _It can't be my Middleton,_ she thought to herself, looking at the image in violet, gold and silver tones that had been included in what Warlock sent. _It couldn't possibly be with those two there._

Warlock looked at his friend and mentor, his puzzlement clearly evident. "I take it you have seen one of these before."

"Not one, Warlock," the dark man corrected, "Several. All going active at the same time. They were looking for a known hero team, claiming they were terrorists."

This got M's attention. "Which one?"

Cipher narrowed her eyes. "They were after Team Possible."

------/

Kim was distraught. In her mind, her entire life had been a lie. She wasn't human. Not an entirely true statement, but she'd missed the explanation that mutants were just humans who were born with a genetic abnormality that gave them powers or enhanced natural abilities. The fact that she had inhumanly excellent agility due to the hollow bones that made up her skeleton and equally unnatural stamina due to her increased ability to heal meant that she'd cheated to be come a member of the cheer squad and that she'd caused her squad to cheat to win all their competitions. Of course the fact that she hadn't known about it at the time seemed to escape her notice. However, the most disturbing revelation was that she wasn't a Possible. The person she'd thought of as her father for the past seventeen years was, in fact, not. She felt betrayed. Her mother knew all these things but never told her. The only thing she could think of when all these truths were laid out before her was to find someplace to hide because she didn't want any one to see her breakdown caused by the sudden crisis of identity.

She didn't have peace for long as she heard angry shouting approaching her location and the sound of scuffling. She recognized the voice. It was Ron. The few words she could make out made it clear that he wanted to help her. This lifted her spirits some. She knew that there was at least one thing in her life that hadn't been a lie. She decided to poke her head out of the room she'd chosen as her sanctuary. The first thing that Kim noticed was that her boyfriend and best friend for life was glowing blue as he fought off the attempts to restrain him by two of the men she'd seen when she'd arrived at this mansion. One was attempting to literally freeze Ron in place, though he wasn't staying put long enough for it to take despite the other one's best efforts. It wasn't long after she'd taken this in when all of a sudden all three stopped their tussling. Ron looked as if he had heard something and was trying to locate where it came from before he noticed Kim. The other two had immediately turned to face her direction, though they seemed to be looking past her. As she turned, she noticed three people were standing behind a fourth, who was seated. The first, she recognized as the brown haired man with red glasses that her mother had knocked out earlier. Next to him was a tall, slender, and slightly elderly looking man with white hair wearing a violet turtle neck with a reddish sports coat and black slacks, which Kim had trouble believing he'd been able to pull off. He had the look of someone who'd seen much in his life, not all of it pleasant. On the left of him was a woman with flowing, vibrant green hair, which appeared to be natural, and seemed to be a few years older than Kim's mother and her friends. Her clothing, though slightly modest, seemed to still give her an almost regal guise. Finally, the seated man, who, Kim realized, was actually wheelchair bound, was bald and appeared to be around the same age as the tall man behind him. He was dressed in a very professional looking navy blue suit and wore a warm and calming expression on his face.

The bald man's voice was kind and serene, yet commanded attention, as he spoke. "Is there a reason why you are trying to impede Mr. Stoppable's attempts to go and comfort Miss Possible?"

The one who had been throwing the ice, who Kim recalled had been introduced as "Bobby," looked nervously in every direction save hers or the man in the wheel chair. On the other hand, the one had been identified to her as "Hank" maintained his composure and spoke up. "We assumed that Kimberly needed to have time to process everything she'd been told before anyone spoke to her, Charles."

The brown haired man raised an eyebrow at the statement. "And what did Jean have to say about this."

This time Bobby spoke. "Uh, after her daughter ran from the room, she started crying hysterically. If she said anything, we couldn't tell."

Charles couldn't help but sigh. "Though the events that are happening in this hall may have distracted her a bit, Miss Possible is clearly distraught about everything that has been said. Mr. Stoppable, if you are so inclined, would you please stay with your friend. It seems that she needs someone she knows she can trust right now."

Ron, who had calmed down by now, swallowed nervously and nodded. "Uh, yeah, no problem."

The seated man nodded in return then turned and addressed two who had as of yet remained silent. "Erik, could you and Lorna go speak with Jean and try to calm her down. I need to try to contact Betty and Warren again so we know when to expect them."

"Of course, old friend."

With that the hall emptied, save for three people. Ron walked over to Kim. He could see the weight of the truths settling back in on his girlfriend and oldest friend, so he did the only thing could think of. He put his arm around her shoulders and led her back into her hiding place and sat with her. "It's going to be OK," he said to her. "We'll talk when you are ready."

Scott Summers stood in the doorway and watched the couple. Even as he saw a hairless, pink animal climb from the boy's pocket on the girl's lap in an attempt to aid with the comforting, he wondered if James and Jean looked like this after he had abandoned her when she'd told him she was pregnant. He knew that was his single greatest mistake and, in seeing the culmination of its consequences, he made a decision. He was going to stay here and help the girl cope.

------/

Bonnie fumed as she sat on a couch in the Wakeman family's living room. While she'd been TJ's friend for years and had been to this house many times before, this was the last place she wanted to be at the moment. The Wakeman home had become a refuge for those with no where else to go after the attack of what Dr. Nora Wakeman called "Sentinels," human beings who, if she'd understood her friend's mother correctly, were supposed to be a new kind of sleeper agent and weapon in the war on terror. Now she was surrounded by the friends and family of her greatest enemy and her loser boyfriend. Unfortunately, she didn't seem to have anywhere else to go. Her mother had initially wanted her to come home, hoping that she could some how protect her precious little Bon-Bon. That lasted all of the roughly five minutes it took get back to her home. When her sisters had made it clear what they would do to Bonnie if she ever crossed the threshold of the Rockwaller abode, Mrs. Rockwaller returned her daughter to the Wakemans'. What disgusted Bonnie most was that Connie and Lonnie indicated they would be justified in taking action against someone who had, in their words, "become such a freak of nature that it was no longer worthy of being called a Rockwaller."

She looked down at the strange helmet her friend had been wearing ever since the Sentinel activation. It had the appearance of an odd mish-mash of a German World War I era stahlhelm and a Spartan phalanx helmet with what appeared to be a demonic looking mouth guard from a set of samurai armor. Until, Bonnie had brought TJ back home, everyone had thought, or, rather, assumed, the helmet was what her head now looked like. It hadn't been until Dr. Wakeman actually removed it that they all realized the truth. The discussion that followed lead to what Bonnie considered the biggest disappointment of all…

…"Okay, Dr. Wakeman," Dr. Possible started with a patient, yet serious tone, "I'm sure we all want to know how you have so much knowledge about those 'Sentinels' that attacked."

The large living room was packed. Near Bonnie were those who had gone to help look for Tara, most were friends of Kim or Ron: Felix Renton, Monique, Wade Load, their respective parents, Mr. Barkin, Mr. Stoppable, Dr. Possible, and a new girl from school who seemed to have a skin condition and was identified as a mutant by the Sentinels, Paige Guthrie, as she'd introduced herself. What Bonnie found most noticeable was that the rest of the cheer squad as well as Paige's older brother and their parents tried to keep their distance from the girl who had been Tara. The play of emotions on their faces was something she hadn't ever quite seen before, but it was readily obvious what they were feeling.

"I know about the Sentinels because I helped design them," was Dr. Wakeman's response. "In fact I was in charge of the Sentinel Project until several months ago. I was replaced just after we had completed the process on our production proof."

Bonnie noticed that the scientist looked down at her daughter and put her hands on her shoulders. As she made the connection, Bonnie was filled with fury towards her best friend's mother. "Wait! You used your own daughter as the prototype for your mechanical soldiers? What kind of monster are you? I mean, really—"

"I volunteered!" TJ's voice held no malice as she spoke, but there was strength in it that few present had ever seen. "After the Lil' Diablo incident during our junior prom, I thought about how helpless I'd felt, not only then, but also when we'd been captured by that Gill creature and when my best friend had been kidnapped by those female robots. I hated that feeling and wanted to do something about it. The only problem was that I didn't know what.

"Then, one night, I heard my mother talking with someone about some anti-terrorist project she was working on. I had to badger her about it for the next week before she told me anything. When she finally told me something, I thought it was the means I'd been waiting for, but it took even more begging to convince her to let me go through the process."

Dr. Wakeman stepped in at that point. "We had her go through an exhaustive battery of tests, both physical and psychological. I had hoped to be able to use those tests as an out. That hope was short lived, however, as the tests came back better than any other volunteer, especially the psych evaluation. So, she was really the only choice if we didn't want a psychotic Sentinel on the loose."

Sam Guthrie snorted derisively, "You sure did a bang up job with the rest of the ones that attacked us, didn't you?"

"THOSE," Nora hissed, "were not my Sentinels. They were based on a slightly different production proof than my design."

"Humph. Whatever, I'm out of here." With a wave, Sam exited, followed by a few members of the cheer squad who had been scowling at their former squad mate…

…All had been silent for a while after that. Those that could return to their homes had done so, leaving only Bonnie, the Loads, the Possibles, the Stoppables and Paige, who'd had a falling out with her older brother regarding TJ, to stay with the Wakemans. Kim's brothers, Bonnie couldn't be bothered to remember their names, had gone to bed, as had Mrs. Stoppable, who said she thought she was coming down with something, and was joined by Mr. Stoppable not that long afterwards. Meanwhile, Dr. Possible, Kim's tech boy, and his parents had left the room to try and find a way around the communications blackout. TJ, Paige, and Nora had stepped out as well: TJ indicating that she wanted to find out how much of her was still organic; Paige was going to do something about her skin, and the scientist enigmatically saying she had to check something. This just left Bonnie alone to contemplate what had happened.

Bonnie was drawn out of her musings when she heard Dr. Wakeman reenter the room. "I just don't understand. I really don't."

The cheerleader gave a curious look at the older woman as she flopped exhaustedly into a chair. "What?"

Nora peered through her oversized glasses at Bonnie, surprised she was there. "I'm sorry, my dear. I hadn't seen you there."

Bonnie sighed and inquired again, "What is it that you don't understand, doctor? Is it something about TJ?"

If it were possible, the scientist would have sunken further into her chair as she moaned in obvious mental exhaustion. "Yes, it's about Tara. By rights her Sentinel equipment should never have been activated."

"Well, clearly someone activated…"

"Let me rephrase: it should have been impossible for Tara to go active after I was cut from the program and they had decided to create a new production proof. The activation method hadn't been determined at that point."

"It's obvious someone made it possible." Bonnie closed her eyes in thought. "Maybe… Maybe this someone figured out how the Sentinels were going to be used wanted to use TJ as a counter measure?"

"Not a very probable explanation, but it does seem to be the only possible one. But that brings up other questions. How did they know Tara would effectively go rogue? How long have they known this would happen, and how long have they planned for this event?" Nora leaned forward in her chair and continued in a conspiratorial tone, "Perhaps going to the source of the Sentinels would shed some light on this."

"Then maybe I can help with the preparations." Both women turned quickly to face the overweight, dark skinned preteen who had just entered the room.

Bonnie narrowed her eyes and took a deep breath, "How is this going to work, nerd-boy?..."

------/

In a solitary lab a figure looked at the monitors it had surrounded itself with and smirked. All was going according to plan…

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**Author's Notes:** First, I'd like to apologize for the lateness of this chapter; I've had three exams that I had to prepare for plus a decent amount of writer's block. I'm curious if anyone can guess where the first scene takes place as well as the real identities of Forge, M, Cipher, Arcade, and Warlock. Intended to reveal their identities in the next chapter, but if you want to send me your guesses, feel free. If you don't have an account, you can e-mail me at I'll announce the readers who come closest in the Author's Notes of the next section, so if you are contacting me by e-mail, give me something to refer to you by. Also, I know there hasn't been a lot of action. I promise I'm getting to it.


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